BY BRADFORD MCKEE

Anybody who values holding a license as a landscape architect is not going to like what happens next. The current political environment and a general disdain for moderation are encouraging an assault against many forms of occupational licensing, including licensing for landscape architecture. So far this year, there have been many bills introduced to end landscape architecture licensing and revamp occupational licensing structures in the legislatures of Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Virginia, and Washington. There are no doubt more to come.

These attempts take various forms. Some would outright deregulate landscape architecture by simply removing it from the group of professions that require licensing. Others are more insidious and would reform landscape architecture as well as most all other licensing systems in the guise of “right to earn a living” or “economic liberty” measures, the premise of which is that licensure poses an unnecessary barrier to entering the occupation of one’s choice. Some would allow citizens to challenge licensure requirements in court and would shift the burden to the state to prove that licensure is necessary over other, less restrictive, forms of regulation. Others would place licensure regulations (more…)

Doug Ducey is a former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, the ice cream franchise, and as such, can’t be expected to know a lot about landscape architecture. Which would be of no consequence were he not now the governor of Arizona and hot to deregulate a number of professions, including, at least initially, landscape architecture. His surrogate in the Arizona House of Representatives, Rep. Warren Petersen, like Ducey, a Republican, introduced a bill this winter that would end the state’s professional licensing requirements for landscape architects as well as for geologists, assayers, yoga instructors, cremationists, citrus fruit packers, and driving instructors. Ducey seems to see these licenses as barriers to work, a “maze of bureaucracy for small-business people looking to earn an honest living,” as he said in his State of the State address this year.

Landscape architects in Arizona, as you might expect, were struck by something close to panic and rose in opposition to the proposal, which passed in the state’s House Commerce Committee on a party-line split in mid-February. Legislators received 1,500 letters from landscape architects arguing against the bill, and 150 landscape architects showed up at the committee hearing. The pushback worked; landscape architects were removed from the bill in early March. They made the case, of course, that landscape architects are licensed in order to prove they have the competency to protect the public’s health, safety, and welfare. According to the Arizona Capitol Times, one legislator, Rep. Jay Lawrence, a Republican, suggested those concerns be left to (more…)

April is, of course, World Landscape Architecture Month (!), and you should tell your friends and family as much at every opportunity. You will also want to share this month’s LAM far and wide, which is made easier because the online version is free. Yes, free.

It’s an issue packed with great stuff at every scale. There is the 700-square-foot garden in Brooklyn by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, where a tiny space is made to seem bigger by packing it with plants around a wonderful fragmented footpath that is not as scattershot as it may appear. There’s the Phipps Conservatory’s Center for Sustainable Landscapes in Pittsburgh by Andropogon Associates, a crucible of super high performance on several levels, not least the level important to butterflies. In Honolulu, Surfacedesign took an intelligent license with the design of a midcentury modern office building by the architect Vladimir Ossipoff to make a finely machined response on its surrounding plaza, complemented by native species all around. And up at the scale of the city, we look at the long-industrial Menomonee River Valley in Milwaukee, where landscape architecture is vital in making a large district habitable to people, animals, and plants with hopes of retaining it as a base of manufacturing jobs.

There’s much more to discover about a spectrum of topics—dog parks, how design firms grow, drawings by Lawrence Halprin, a book on John Nolen, and a look back to a century ago when ASLA was pivotal in helping to establish the National Park Service. And stories you won’t want to miss in the Now and Species sections, and an absorbing photo portfolio by Lynn Saville in the Back.

Like this:

As reported in our February 2012 issue, the Landscape Architect Registration Examination (LARE) is undergoing some major structural changes. The exam is being reorganized from five sections to four sections, and the graphic sections that required you to hand draft the answers will soon be administered by computer. (See a graphic that explains those changes here.)

This June is the final time the grading and site design sections (C and E) will be offered in their current format. The deadline to register for these sections with the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB) is this Friday, May 4. If you’ve passed Section D of the exam, and haven’t passed sections C or E, you’ll want to make sure you are signed up to take both those sections in June or you’ll risk losing the credit you gained for section D. There’s more information on CLARB’s web site.